Defaulting on corporate debt payments – no matter the cause – slashes a company’s market value by more than 20% on average, according to new research from Stanford University. The cost can rise substantially, depending on the complexity of the company’s balance sheet, the ability to strike a deal with creditors and other factors.

Relatively stable and liquid credit markets helped push the U.S. corporate default rate to the lowest level since 2007 last year, according to a new report.

There were just 39 U.S. corporate defaults in 2011, down from 58 a year earlier, Standard & Poor’s said in the report published Friday. That translated into a 1.04% default rate, down from 1.62% in 2010 and 5.71% in 2009.